tant! All bounded by the stream of the Rubicon! What was Cæsar, that stood upon the bank of that stream? A traitor, bringing war and pestilence into the heart of that country! No wonder that he paused,--no wonder if, his imagination wrought upon by his conscience, he had beheld blood instead of water, and heard groans instead of murmurs! No wonder, if some gorgon horror had turned him into stone upon the spot! But no!-he cried, "The die is cast!" He plunged!-he crossed!-and Rome was free no more!

RICHELIEU AND FRANCE.-Sir E. Bulwer Lytton.
My liege, your anger can recall your trust,
Annul my office, spoil me of my lands,
Rifle my coffers; but my name, my deeds,—
Are royal in a land beyond your sceptre.
Pass sentence on me, if you will;—from Kings,
Lo, I appeal to time! Be just, my liege.
I found your Kingdom rent with heresies,
And bristling with rebellion;-lawless nobles
And breadless serfs; England fomenting discord,
Austria, her clutch on your dominion; Spain
Forging the prodigal gold of either Ind

To armed thunderbolts. The arts lay dead;
Trade rotted in your marts; your Armies mutinous
Your Treasury bankrupt. Would you now revoke
Your trust, so be it! and I leave you, sole,
Supremest Monarch of the mightiest realm,
From Ganges to the Icebergs. Look without,--
No foe not humbled! Look within,-the Arts

Quit, for our schools, their old Hesperides,
The golden Italy! while throughout the veins
Of your vast empire flows in strengthening tides
Trade, the calm health of Nations! Sire, I know
That men have called me cruel ;-

I am not ;-I am just! I found France rent asunder
The rich men despots, and the poor banditti;
Sloth in the mart, and schism within the temple,
Brawls festering to rebellion; and weak laws
Rotting away with rust in antique sheaths.

I have recreated France; and, from the ashes
Of the old feudal and decrepit carcass,
Civilization, on her luminous wings,

Soars, phoenix-like, to Jove! What was my art?
Genius, some say ;--some, Fortune;-Witchcraft, some.
Not so; -my art was JUSTICE!

AN APPEAL TO THE JURY.--Phillips.

1. Oh! gentlemen, am I this day only the counsel of my client? No, no; I am the advocate of humanityof yourselves, your homes, your wives, your families, your little children. I am glad that this case exhibits such atrocity; unmarked as it is by any mitigatory feature, it may stop the frightful advance of this calamity; it will be met now, and marked with vengeance.

2. If it be not, farewell to the virtues of your country; farewell to all confidence between man and man; farewell to that unsuspicious and reciprocal tenderness without which marriage is but a consecrated curse. oaths are to be violated, laws disregarded, friendship

If

betrayed, humility trampled, national and individual honor stained, and if a jury of fathers and husbands will give such miscreancy a passport to their homes, and wives, and daughters, farewell to all that yet remains of Ireland!

3. But I will not cast such a doubt upon the character of my country. Against the sneer of the foe and the skepticism of the foreigner, I will stand and point to the domestic virtues, that no perfidy could barter, and no bribery can purchase; that with a Roman usage at once embellish and consecrate households, giving to the society of the hearth all the purity of the altar; that, lingering alike in the palace and the cottage, are still to be found scattered over this land-the relic of what she was-the source, perhaps, of what she may be the lone, the stately, and the magnificent memorials that, rearing their majesty amidst surrounding ruins, serve at once as the landmarks of departed glory, and the models by which the future may be erected.

4. Preserve those virtues with a vestal fidelity; mark this day, by your verdict, your horror of their profanation; and, believe me, when the hand which records that verdict shall be dust, and the tongue which asks it traceless in the grave, many a happy home will bless its consequences, and many a mother teach her little child to hate the impious treason of adultery.

IRELAND.-Meagher.

1. I do not despair of my poor old country, her peace, her liberty, her glory. For that country I can do no more than bid her hope. To lift this island up,

to make her a benefactor instead of being the meanest beggar in the world, to restore to her her native powers and her ancient constitution, this has been my ambition, and this ambition has been my crime.

2. Judged by the law of England, I know this crime entails the penalty of death; but the history of Ireland explains this crime, and justifies it. Judged by that history I am no criminal; you are no criminal; I deserve no punishment; we deserve no punishment. Judged by that history, the treason of which I stand convicted loses all its guilt, is sanctified as a duty, will be ennobled as a sacrifice.

3. With these sentiments, my lord, I await the sentence of the court, having done what I felt to be my duty, having spoken what I felt to be the truth, as I have done on every other occasion of my short career. I now bid farewell to the country of my birth, my passion, and my death-the country whose misfortunes have invoked my sympathies, whose factions I have sought to still, whose intellect I have prompted to a lofty aim, whose freedom has been my fatal dream.

4. I offer to that country, as a proof of the love I bear her, and the sincerity with which I thought, and spoke and struggled for her freedom, the life of a young heart; and with that life, all the hopes, the honors, the endearments of an honorable home.

5. Pronounce, then, my lords, the sentence which the law directs, and I will be prepared to hear it. I trust I shall be prepared to meet its execution. I hope to be able, with a pure heart and a perfect composure, to appear before a higher tribunal—a tribunal where a

Judge of infinite goodness, as well as of justice, will pre side, and where, my lords, many, many of the judg ments of this world will be reversed.

WAR SOMETIMES A MORAL DUTY.—Meagher.

Sir, I dissent from the resolutions before us. I dissent because they would pledge me to the utter repudiation of physical force—at all times, in all countries, and under every circumstance. This I cannot do; for, sir, when national rights are to be vindicated, I do not repudiate the resort to physical force-I do not abhor the use of arms. There are occasions when arms alone will suffice;-when political ameliorations call for a drop of blood-ay, for many thousand drops of blood.

Opinion, I admit, sir, may be left to operate against opinion. But force must be used against force. The soldier is proof against an argument, but not against a bullet. The man that will listen to reason, let him be reasoned with. But it is only the weaponed arm of the patriot that can prevail against battalioned despotism. Therefore, sir, I do not condemn the use of arms as immoral, nor do I conceive it profane to say, that the King of Heaven, the Lord of Hosts, the God of Battles, bestows his benediction upon those who unsheathe the sword in the hour of a nation's peril.

Be it in the defence, or be it in the assertion of a people's liberty, I hail the sword as a sacred weapon; and if it has sometimes taken the shape of the serpent, and reddened the shroud of the oppressor with too